March 9, 2013

Said William, in the comments to my post about closing the White House to tourists.

My response: "Yes, but sometimes it happens that you decide to do something for the wrong reason and it happens to be a good decision for other reasons."

Can you think of some good examples?

I was going to say that my observation is related to but different from the idea of unintended consequences. But it seems to be the first of the 3 types of unintended consequences:

A positive, unexpected benefit (usually referred to as luck, serendipity or a windfall).

A negative, unexpected detriment occurring in addition to the desired effect of the policy (e.g., while irrigation schemes provide people with water for agriculture, they can increase waterborne diseases that have devastating health effects, such as schistosomiasis).

A perverse effect contrary to what was originally intended (when an intended solution makes a problem worse)

21 comments:

You don't need to go running around inside a building where people have to work.

Work? Are you serious? The have been so busy hanging with celebrities while on the permanent campaign they actually haven't gotten to work yet. Maybe they might actually submit a budget? It's only been four years.

At the risk of being cynical, much of well intended governmental action has negative unintentional negative consequences. As policies are developed, it is easy to focus on the target policy objective, but very difficult to quantify how the incentives and disincentives will shape non-targeted behavior.

The often cited and well intended social welfare programs have resulted in the reduction of the prevalence of traditional family structures because of the economic incentives built into those programs. By any measure children of families with both parents intact have a better chance at social and economic success. That is not to say children in single parent homes cannot flourish, but there are many unintended problems that go along with those circumstances.

Coupled with the difficulty of ending programs regardless of their efficacy, it is a persuasive argument for limited government.

I'm not sure I'd call a re-evaluation of the usefulness of various government activities an "unintended" consequence of the sequester.

People don't usually pay attention to the details of gov spending, so they just argue unpersuasive generalities. But when a highly visible item gets cut, people naturally ask "Why can't something else be cut instead?" Which focuses attention, however briefly, on a wider range of activities.

White House tours is like prayer at high school football games. I do not know why they do it, but it is very important to those that do, and also to their friends and relatives, and indeed a number of complete strangers.So, just let that pass; there are more important things that need fixing.

And $74,000/week overtime? And this has been going on like forever? Someone does indeed need to be fired!

And why again is it a positive result? Do you honestly think teachers are going to have their 6th graders read the Bill of Rights -- or The Federalist Papers(!!!) -- in place of going to the White House?

No, Maryland This Is NOT Good EnoughRepublican Sen. J.B. Jennings introduced a bill that would prohibit schools from suspending students for seemingly harmless childish acts, such as playing games with fingers pointed like guns ...

Good.

"These kids can't comprehend what they are doing or the ramifications of their actions," Jennings

Bad. There are no significant ramifications from playing with your food or toys, other than those manufactured to be exploited for political leverage.

As for the topic of this post, they previously restricted access to the Capitol. Both are the people's houses for a reason. Certainly the privilege can be abused; however, it is dissociation of risk which causes corruption.